Black History

MN Black History Salute: The Legacy Of Blacks In Baseball

MINNESOTA SPOKESMAN-RECORDER — Long before the Twins made Minnesota a major league stop, the state was home to countless talented Black baseball players.

Published

6 years ago

February 6, 2019

MSR News

By MSR News

In honor of Black History Month, we’re sharing short clips highlighting the legacy and history of Blacks in Minnesota. This week, we salute the oft-invisible Black baseball players who found their place in history despite widespread racism and segregation.

Long before the Twins made Minnesota a major league stop, the state was home to countless talented Black baseball players. Yet few of them are known to today’s fans.

“There were so many multi-sport guys who played America’s pastime, but because of segregated baseball, no one was looking at these guys or even attempted to recruit them,” said Frank White, Minnesota Twins’ RBI program coordinator and author of They Played for the Love of the Game. “They were invisible to organized baseball.”

White’s book highlights those Black players through photos, artifacts, and spoken histories. It also features his late father, Louis, who was one of the top catchers in the Twin Cities in his day.

“My father in the ’40s was recruited by the [Kansas City] Monarchs. He had an offer from the New York Yankees,” White told the MSR. “He would’ve been before Elston Howard [as the team’s first Black player]. His [high school] batting average for the St. Paul City Conference is still a record even though it was made way back in 1946.”

Louis White was inducted into Minnesota’s softball hall of fame. “In talking with people who knew my father, he was first of all an outstanding athlete, and he was an outstanding baseball player and later a fast-pitch softball player,” said Frank.

For more information, visit minnesotablackbaseball.com.

Excerpted from “New book revives lost stories of Black baseball in MN,” by MSR contributor Charles Hallman. Read the full story at bit.ly/2DFwmuT.

This article originally appeared in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.

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Oakland Post: Week of June 4 – 10, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 4-10, 2025

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4 days ago

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Oakland Post

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Remembering George Floyd

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing.

Published

1 week ago

June 2, 2025

Oakland Post

Mural showing the portrait of George Floyd in Mauerpark in Berlin. To the left of the portrait the lettering "I can't Breathe" was added, on the right side the three hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, #Icantbreathe and #Sayhisname. The mural was completed by Eme Street Art (facebook name) / Eme Free Thinker (signature) on 29 May 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

By April Ryan
BlackPressUSA Newswire

“The president’s been very clear he has no intentions of pardoning Derek Chauvin, and it’s not a request that we’re looking at,” confirms a senior staffer at the Trump White House. That White House response results from public hope, including from a close Trump ally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The timing of Greene’s hopes coincides with the Justice Department’s recent decision to end oversight of local police accused of abuse. It also falls on the fifth anniversary of the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25th. The death sparked national and worldwide outrage and became a transitional moment politically and culturally, although the outcry for laws on police accountability failed.

The death forced then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to focus on deadly police force and accountability. His efforts while president to pass the George Floyd Justice in policing act failed. The death of George Floyd also put a spotlight on the Black community, forcing then-candidate Biden to choose a Black woman running mate. Kamala Harris ultimately became vice president of the United States alongside Joe Biden. Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the cases against the officers involved in the death of Floyd. He remembers,” Trump was in office when George Floyd was killed, and I would blame Trump for creating a negative environment for police-community relations. Remember, it was him who said when the looting starts, the shooting starts, it was him who got rid of all the consent decrees that were in place by the Obama administration.”

In 2025, Police-involved civilian deaths are up by “about 100 to about 11 hundred,” according to Ellison. Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African-American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing. During those minutes on the ground, Floyd cried out for his late mother several times. Police subdued Floyd for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.